Eurolinguistics

Typological questions have mainly been dealt with by the Eurolinguistischer Arbeitskreis Mannheim (ELAMA; led by Per Sture Ureland) and the EUROTYP projects.

The internet platform EuroLinguistiX (ELiX) (edited by Joachim Grzega) offers a bibliography of Eurolinguistic publications as well as a wiki, a discussion forum, an academic internet journal in order to address also aspects of "linguistic and cultural history", "sociology of languages", "language politics" and "intercultural communication".

Also joint with the ELAMA, the EuroLSJ project by Erhard Steller tries to collect essential results of Eurolinguistics and make them usable for everyday life in Europe by transforming them into a representative standard language (LSJ European / Europé LSJ) which wants to serve as an optimized "acquisition and memory helper" (Giuseppe G. Castorina) for a quicker and easier access to all languages of Europe.

(Sources and further information for this section: Haarmann 1991, Grzega 2006) Writing was introduced to Europe by the Greeks, and from there also brought to the Romans (6th century BC).

For (a) Modern English is a good example (and in many ways the code oral of French verbs); for (c) Old English and Modern High German are good examples (and in many ways the code écrit of French verb forms); classical representatives of type (b) are Finnish and Hungarian.

Apart from the points already mentioned, the categories of aspect (not always easy to separate from the tense system) and gender are noteworthy.

Under the category of aspect linguists basically understand the distinction between perfective actions (activity finished, has led to a result; single event) and imperfective actions (activity not yet finished, w/out information on termination; long duration, repetitive).

The most current gender systems in Europe are twofold (masculine vs. feminine, e.g. in the Romanic languages, or uter vs. neuter, e.g. in Swedish and Danish); but there are also languages that are threefold (e.g. Slavic, German) or lack grammatical gender at all (e.g. English, Hungarian, Finnish).

Haspelmath (2001) illustrates that German, Dutch, French, Occitan and Northern Italian are the most central members of this sprachbund.

Neo-Latin with its Greek elements) can be considered internationalisms, although occasionally the meanings vary from one language to another, which might even lead to misunderstandings.

Many European proverbs and idioms go back to antiquity and the Bible; some originate in national stories and were spread over other languages via Latin.

A typical European proverb to express that there is no profit without working can be paraphrased as "Roasted pigeons/larks/sparrows/geese/chickens/birds don't fly into one's mouth", e.g.: (Sources and further information for this section: Axtell 1993, Collett 1993, Morrison et al. 1994, Hickey/Stewart 2005, Grzega 2006) In Geert Hofstede's terms Europe can, to a large extent, be considered an individualistic civilization (i.e. a rather direct and analytic style is preferred, important points are mentioned before an explanation or illustration in an argument, decisions are based on compromise or majority vote); in contrast, the Sinic (Chinese), Japanese, Arabic and Hindu (Indian) civilizations are collectivistic (i.e. a rather indirect and synthetic style is used, explanations and illustrations are mentioned before the essential point of an argument, decisions are reached through consent).

(Sources and further information for this section: Haarmann 1975, Haarmann 1993, Grzega 2006) Three linguae francae are prominent in European history: Linguae francae that were less widespread, but still played a comparatively important role in European history are: The first type of dictionary was the glossary, a more or less structured list of lexical pairs (in alphabetical order or according to conceptual fields).

A new wave of lexicography can be seen from the late 15th century onwards (after the introduction of the printing press, with the growing interest in standardizing languages).

Among other things, this led to projects of standardizing national language and gave birth to a number of language academies (e.g. 1582 Accademia della Crusca in Florence, 1617 Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, 1635 Académie française, 1713 Real Academia de la Lengua in Madrid).

(Sources and further information for this section: Stephens 1976, Price 1998, Ahrens 2003, Grzega 2006) Despite the importance of English as an international lingua franca in Europe, Europe is also linguistically diverse, and minority languages are protected, e.g. by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages founded in the 1990s.

(Sources and further information for this section: Siguan 2002, Ahrens 2003, Grzega 2006) France is the origin of two laws, or decrees, concerning language: the Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts (1239), which says that every document in France should be written in French (i.e. not in Latin nor Occitan) and the French Loi Toubon, which aims at eliminating Anglicisms from official documents.

But a characteristic feature of Europe is linguistic diversity and tolerance, which is not only shown by the European Charta of Regional and Minority Languages.